LHF - EP1: Enter In Silence

LHF - EP1: Enter In Silence
Followers of Martin "Blackdown" Clark's blog may have noticed that he's been getting increasingly excited about the productions coming out of the mysterious LHF camp, commenting that the collective "sound like Sun Ra's hijacked Rinse FM and is using it to communicate with the heavens." Revolving around core members and co-founders Amen Ra and Double Helix, LHF also count fellow producers No Fixed Abode, Escobar Seasons, Octaviour and Solar Man as part of their crew, leading to a diverse mixture of dubstep-compatible material to put behind the name. The main focus on the outfit's debut EP, however, is their main producer Double Helix and his protege Low Density Matter.

Helix kicks things off on the first side with his own "Deep Life," which balances powerful rolling drums with brooding sci-fi pads and sampled diva vocals. Its insistent bass refrain and booming snares give it a lot of potential for dubstep-geared floors, while Low Density Matter follows it up with a much smoother jazz-infused cut. "Blue Steel" comes across as the best produced piece on Enter In Silence, with each sample slotting into the stepping groove effortlessly. Amen Ra's two collaborations with Double Helix finish things off, both exuding an uncertain eerie atmosphere with their quivering tribal percussion and spooky melodic progressions. Some of the production values on LHF's first EP are a little rough around the edges, but there's no doubting the myriad ideas that they're cramming into their tracks. It's a promising start, but with plenty more Keysound releases on the horizon in the near future, one suspects that their best material is yet to come.